


where we go from here

by freyjaschariot



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV), The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-13 14:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15366537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyjaschariot/pseuds/freyjaschariot
Summary: June and Nick finally make their escape from Gilead with Hannah in tow but things don't go quite to plan.In the months that follow June is forced to confront the fact that she is no longer the same person she was pre-Gilead. This story follows her attempts to make a life for herself in her new circumstances while negotiating complicated relationships with her past, her children, and the men who love her. Rated for later chapters.





	1. Escape

**Author's Note:**

> I so don't have time to be writing this but the muse is gonna do what it's gonna do, I guess! Thanks for reading!

Hannah and I huddle beneath a blanket tossed over us on the floor of the backseat of the SUV while Nick argues with the guard at the final checkpoint before the no-man’s land that separates Gilead territory from Canadian. 

“I'm sorry, sir,” the stocky blond guard is saying. “But our orders were explicit: I’m not to let anyone through until the missing Handmaid is found.”

I peak out from under the corner of the blanket. I can see a sliver of Nick’s face between the edge of his seat and the car window. His expression is dark with rage, only part of which is an act.

“You think I don't know that?” Nick snarls. “The missing Handmaid is from my house.” He tells the guard the story we prepared on our way to the border. That I kidnapped Hannah from Commander Mackenzie’s house earlier that day. That I stole the vehicle a careless Guardian left idling in front of the house. That the same vehicle was found empty a few miles back and they are now moving under the assumption that Hannah and I are attempting to flee to Canada on foot. “If you let me through now we might still catch her,” Nick says. “Or would you rather be the guy who let a high ranking Commander’s Handmaid get away?”

The guard pales, licks his lips. Sensing weakness, Nick presses further. “What's your name, Guardian? Waterford will want to know the name of the man responsible for losing him his Handmaid. As will Commander Mackenzie.” 

I can see the wheels turning in the guard’s head. After what seems like an eternity but can’t be more than a few seconds he comes to a conclusion. “That won't be necessary, Guardian Blaine. Of course I’ll do whatever I can to aid the bitch’s capture.” He gives Nick a strained smile. “Give her a slap for me when you catch her, eh?”

Nick’s voice is cold. “The Handmaid’s punishment will be up to the Commanders and God. Now if you’re done delaying me I would appreciate if you opened the gate so I can get on with my assignment.”

The color flees the man’s face. “Of course. I didn't mean- I would never presume- Let me just open it for you.” He slams a button on the control panel in front of him and slowly, so slowly the gate begins to swing open.

I can hardly breathe. It’s happening. We're getting out. Just a few more seconds. Just a few-

A staticky voice crackles through the guard’s radio. 

_Shoot on sight order issued for Guardian Nicholas Blaine. Medium height, dark hair, dark eyes. Blaine is believed to be abetting the escape of a missing Handmaid and a kidnapped child. I repeat: shoot on sight order issued for Nicholas Blaine-”_

For a second the two men stare at each other. Then the guard grabs his gun from its holster as he snatches up the radio with his other hand and shrieks, “He’s here! Blaine is here! I have him-” 

The rest of his words are lost as Nick slams his foot on the gas. The car lunges forward as the guard raises his weapon. Gun fire shatters the back window and Hannah shrieks as glass rains down on our heads. I clutch Hannah to my chest, covering her body with mine. 

Then we’re at the gate. The car crashes into it and the wire and metal structure crumples like aluminum foil beneath the Mercedes’ wheels as a second barrage of gunfire peppers the back of the vehicle. 

There’s a popping sound and Nick swears as the car swerves violently, one of the back wheels blown out by a bullet. Part of the gate is stuck to the grill of the car, dragged along like Hector’s body behind Achilles’ chariot. Despite this, the car continues hurtling forward. I chance glancing behind us through the shattered window. The guard is standing outside the guard house, gun raised, still shooting but it’s too late, we’re out of his range, roaring across no man’s land, out of Gilead, toward freedom. 

I let out a strangled laugh. We did it. We’re out. We’re free.

“Mommy,” Hannah whimpers. 

I look down. Wide-eyed, Hannah holds up a hand. Her small palm is covered in blood. The laughter turns to ash in my mouth.

“Nick!” I can barely form words through the terror racing through me. My hands fly across Hannah’s body searching for a bullet hole, a gash caused by the exploding glass but I can’t find one and my panic grows. "Nick, she’s hurt!" _Fuck. Fuck!_ "Banana, can you tell me where it hurts? Show mommy where it hurts, baby.”

Hannah shakes her head slowly and points at my abdomen. 

I look down. The front of my dress is a deeper crimson than the rest. A sudden cold overtakes me as I watch the garish stain spread across my torso. Black dots appear at the corners of my eyes. The dots grow, racing across my vision like spilled ink. My fingers shake as I press them to my stomach. They come away red.

The blood isn’t Hannah’s; it’s mine.

“Oh,” I say.

The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is my daughter’s terrified face hovering over me.

Then all goes black.


	2. Adjustment Period

I am surrounded by white light. I can't feel my body. Do I have a body anymore? Perhaps I am dead. Perhaps this is heaven. A subtle scent tickles my nose. Like lemon disinfectant. Do they use antiseptic in heaven?

My eyes flutter open. I’m in a bed in a hospital room with white walls. Tubes flow in and out of me like tree roots, connected to a machine by my head that beeps softly in time with my heartbeat. A chair is pulled up to the bed and in it--

“Luke.” My throat is raw and his name comes out like a croak.

His head jerks up. He looks like shit. His glasses are missing and dark shadows float beneath his eyes. For a moment we simply hold each other’s gaze. Then he’s moving, leaning forward, gathering me up in his arms, and we’re both crying. I cling to his shirt, not caring that I’m getting it wet, that my nose is running like freight train, afraid that if I let go he’ll disappear. Finally we break apart. He continues perching on the edge of the bed. Both of us laugh as we wipe away tears.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow. “Right back ‘atcha. That was some escape.”

I smile and dab my eyes with the back of my hand. “What happened? I mean, I remember most of it, at least until-” I wave my hand toward my torso which, beneath the hospital blanket, is covered in bandages. 

“You were shot crossing the border. The bullet lodged between two ribs. Thankfully it missed all of your vital organs but you lost a lot of blood. According to the doctors you’re out of the woods now though. They say you should make a complete recovery.”

I let out a long, shaky breath. “And Hannah?”

His face brightens. “She’s fine. One of the nurses took her down to the cafeteria to get some ice cream. You got her out.” He squeezes my hand. “You did it, June. You’re amazing.”

“I had help,” I say. 

“I know. I couldn’t believe it when Nick called me to tell me you’d made it out. I am going to owe that guy for the rest of my life.”

I hesitate. “Nick called you?”

“Yeah. That’s how I found out. At first, I thought it was a joke.” Luke shakes his head as though he’s still having a hard time wrapping his head around things. “Then he put Hannah on the phone.”

“Is he… is he here?”

“Nah, some government people came by and took him.” At the panicked look on my face, Luke adds quickly, “I don’t think he’s in trouble. They said they just needed to ask him some questions. Makes sense. I mean, he must have a ton of valuable intel, working for Waterford that long.” 

Someone knocks on the door. “Feeling up for a few more visitors?” Luke asks. 

The door creaks open and Moira steps into the room. She’s not alone, either. My breath catches in my throat as my best friend approaches the bed with my daughter perched on her hip. The last time I saw Holly she was eight weeks old. That helpless infant is gone, replaced by a chunky 7 month old with blue eyes and dark, softly curling hair, wearing the slightly cross expression of someone who’s just woken up from a nap. 

“I brought someone to see you,” Moira says.

I open my arms and Moira leans down and deposits Holly in my lap. Rocking back and forth, I bury my face in her hair. “Hi, baby,” I murmur. “Hi, sweetheart.” Pulling back, I hold her a bit away from myself. “Let me look at you. God, you’re so big!” I try to take it in all at once. The long lashes. The rolls of fat around her ankles. Whoever dressed her put her in a onesie embroidered with the words I love my mom. I press kisses to her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. Clutching her to me, I glance up at Moira through watery eyes. “Thank you.”

Moira raises an eyebrow. “Girl, you are lucky your kids are cute cause this one has been waking me up every night for months.”

“You've been taking care of her?”

“Yeah, me and Luke.”

I swallow the thick lump in my throat and nod. “Thank you,” I say again. Because what else is there to say?

“Shut up,” Moira says. “You know you’re family.” She reaches out and tickles Holly below her chubby chin. “So are your babies.” She looks down at me, smiling. “Thanks for not dying on me.”

I smile back at her. “Yeah. You too.”

Eventually my visitors are shooed out by concerned nurses parroting something about too much stimulation. I fall asleep soon after they leave. When I wake up again morning light is falling through the window of my room and Nick has replaced Luke in the chair beside my bed. 

“Hi,” he says. 

“Hi,” I say.

“How are you feeling?”

“Just peachy,” I say, wincing as I struggle to sit up. “I was worried. Luke said some government people took you away.”

“They just had some questions for me.”

I raise my eyebrows. “That’s it?”

“I’m going to work for the American Consulate. Tell them everything I know I about how Gilead operates. I don’t know how it’ll help but I have to try.”

“It’ll help. Every bit helps.”

He nods. It’s not lost on me that he won’t look me in the eye. 

“Holly was here yesterday,” I blurt. “Luke and Moira are going to bring her back to visit this afternoon. You should stay.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Standing, Nick wanders over to the window. The sunlight gilds his edges, turning him golden. “He’s a good man. Luke.”

I had to know this was coming. That if our escape was successful we would have to deal with the complicated nature of our entanglement eventually. Grabbing love wherever you can find it is good advice when you’re living under a totalitarian regime. It’s not so simple in the real world. I can’t have a lover and a husband. I made a vow to Luke. And more than that, I love him. Still, none of this lessens the pain that I know is coming. 

“I think we should take some time. Figure things out.” Nick glances at me over his shoulder. Is he waiting for me to argue? When I don’t I can’t tell if it’s regret or relief I see in his eyes. Whatever happens next I know I will never forget this moment. The soft beeping of my heart monitor. The morning light that fills the room like a cathedral. 

I nod. "I think so too." 

Nick's Adam's Apple bobs as he swallows thickly. He crosses the room, leans down, and presses his lips to my cheek. I turn my face toward him, drinking in his smell. Cigarettes and pine. My hand rises of its own volition, curling into the collar of his shirt, as if I can hold him there forever. But I can’t and we both know it. 

He pulls away. My hand falls. 

“Goodbye, June.”

I can’t bring myself to say it back. 

Then he’s gone. 

I don’t realize I’m crying until I taste the salt on my tongue. 

~~~~~~

The day I get out of the hospital I am weighed down by balloons and flowers from the nurses. Luke used my time in the hospital to find a new place for him, Hannah, and I. He drives straight there from the hospital. I watch the world go by from behind the car window. A woman walking her dog. A young couple strolling hand in hand on the sidewalk. A man lugging his groceries up the steps of an apartment building. Mundane acts of everyday life that seem strange, almost unnatural, when viewed through Gilead tinted lenses. 

The place Luke found for us is in a small apartment complex on a street lined with tall oak trees. Across the street is a park with a slide and swings, and a few blocks over is the school that Hannah will attend once she’s ready to go back.

Our apartment is on the fourth floor with a nice view of the park. When I walk in, leaning on Luke’s arm for support, I am greeted by a banner strung across the doorway that reads Welcome Home, June! in brightly colored letters. 

They say that home is where the heart is but what if you heart is in multiple pieces? What if you’re not sure you even have one any more? 

“June?” Luke is holding open the door waiting for me to come inside. “You coming?”

I force myself to smile. “Yeah. I’m coming.”

~~~~~~~

A week after I get out of the hospital Moira takes me shopping. It’s kind of unavoidable as I have no clothes. Scratch that. I have one set of clothes: a sweatshirt and sweatpants combo purchased from the hospital gift shop. I used to love shopping. I was there so often all the clerks at Anthropologie knew me by name. Now the myriad choices overwhelm me. 

Staring at rack after rack of items, I find myself longing for my red dress and the simplicity of knowing what I was going to put on when I woke up in the morning. Then I realize what I’m thinking and feel like I’m going to puke. To combat the feeling, I buy far more than I need. I specifically choose things that would get a woman killed in Gilead: low cut tops, tight jeans, above the knee dresses, brightly patterned sweaters. When I get home I try on one of the dresses, a purple wrap dress that highlights the curve of my waist. It looks garish and I can’t take it off fast enough. I select a few pairs of jeans and a couple of plain t-shirts and fold them neatly in a drawer in the bureau. The rest of it I shove into the back of the closet. 

If Luke notices the pile of unworn clothes he doesn’t say anything. In fact, we don’t talk much at all. We both try but it’s like we no longer speak the same language. I hate Gilead for doing this to us. I hate myself for letting them.

I rarely leave the house. Random things bring it all back. A slammed car door. A siren. The city bells, tolling the hour. 

After three months I am beginning to go stir crazy. A kindly old woman lives next door. She adores Holly and has offered several times to watch her if I need to go out. Her family lives far away and I think she’s lonely. Finally I take her up on the offer. After dropping Holly off, I rush back in the apartment and pull a suitable outfit from the pile in my closet. Before I can change my mind I march myself down to the American consulate and ask if they have any use for a very out-of-practice editor. Turns out they’re desperate for extra hands. They put me to work editing stories for Radio Free America. Surprisingly, it helps. I can’t live inside my head when I’m busy. I lose myself in the red marked pages, a dead Martha displaced by an erroneously used semicolon. Eden’s body hanging from the wall nothing more than a dangling participle. 

It is not lost to me that Nick and I are now working in the same place, that I could run into him at any moment. I go about my days expecting to see him around every corner, but I never do. It’s for the best, I tell myself. It would only complicate things, make trying to readjust even more difficult. 

~~~~~~~~

One day I’m in the small staff kitchen at the Consulate making coffee when I bump into a petite, mousy haired woman with an AIN (American Intelligence Network, essentially the CIA in exile) badge fixed to the front of her blouse. 

The question falls from my mouth before I can stop it.

“Nick Blaine?” she says, placing the creamer back in the fridge and turning toward me. “Yeah, I know him. He works in another building off-site.”

All the time I walked around expecting to see him and he was never here. I feel like a fool. “Can you give this to him for me?” I scribble my address on a scrap of paper and hand it to her. “Tell him June needs to talk to him. Will you tell him… Just tell him it’s important.”

The woman looks at me curiously, as though waiting for me to identify myself or at least clarify my relationship with Nick. When it becomes clear that neither thing is going to happen she tucks the paper into her pocket. “Sure thing. I’ll give it to him.”

“Thank you.”

A week passes. I start to think he’s never going to show up. That he’s cut us clean out of his life and that's it. Maybe he’s relieved to be free of me. It’s one thing to tell a woman you love her when a guillotine is hanging over both of your necks. It’s another thing entirely when loving her means navigating a minefield of pre-existing relationships. 

The day I’ve made my peace with this (not really, but that’s what I tell myself), the doorbell rings as I’m warming up a bottle for Holly. Hoisting her onto my hip, I pad to the door and pull it open fully expecting to see Doreen Bancroft from down the hall come to return Luke’s KitchenAid. 

It’s not Doreen Bancroft.

Several seconds tick by as we stare at each other. 

His hair is slightly shorter than the last time I saw him that day in the hospital. Instead of the all-black of a Guardian, he wears jeans, work boots, a white t-shirt, and a navy bomber jacket. His hands are stuffed in his pockets as though he doesn’t know what to do with them. I grateful mine are full of Holly because I wouldn’t either. 

“Hi,” he says. 

I hike Holly up my hip. “Hi.”

Worry is etched into the lines around his eyes. “Alice told me you were looking for me. She seemed to think there was some kind of emergency. Is everything alright?”

_I missed you. I don’t know what I’m doing. What should I be doing?_

“She must have misunderstood," I say, surprising myself with the smoothness of my voice. I have to credit Gilead with this: it turned me into an effective liar. "Everything’s fine. I just… thought we should catch up.”

Nick raises his chin thoughtfully. He doesn’t believe me, I can tell, but thankfully he doesn’t press it. “Sure.” His eyes shift to Holly and his mouth curls into a smile. “She’s so big.”

“Tell me about it. Look… do you want to go get coffee or something?”

There’s a small coffee house around the corner. It’s a grey, rainy day so we run. The bell on the door tinkles cheerily as we step into the shop. We find a table in the back and a barista brings us a high chair for Holly then comes back a few minutes later with two large mugs of coffee. I wrap my hands around the mug, the hot ceramic warming my chilled fingers.

We make small talk. The weather. Our jobs. What did I think this would be like? I study his face the way a small child studies the contents of a puddle, prodding it for secrets. He gives away nothing. How is he doing really? Does he have nightmares, wake up panicked thinking he's back in Gilead? Does he regret our relationship? Does he miss me like I miss him? 

His hand lies inches from mine on the table. The urge to reach out and take it is overwhelming. I busy my hands adding too much sugar to my coffee.

I find myself telling him about the pile of unworn clothes in my closet. About how Luke and I don’t speak about Gilead at all, except in a detached, academic way when the occasional news story pops up on the tv. How not talking about it makes it worse. 

Nick listens without interruption. He doesn’t try to soothe me, tell me everything’s alright, that everything I am feeling is a normal response to extreme trauma. I stare down at my now-cold, too-sweet coffee. “Do you think we’ll ever feel normal again?”

“I don’t know,” he says softly.

The fact that he doesn't immediately say 'of course' or 'time heals all wounds' is oddly comforting. 

I find myself looking around the shop, scrutinizing the other customers. It’s getting toward lunchtime and the coffee shop is filling up with women carrying yoga gear, men in suits talking on their phones, college kids with earbuds stuffed in their ears. Normal people going about their normal lives. Is that what we look like to them? Father, mother, baby. Just a regular family out for lunch on a rainy Tuesday in autumn.

It stops raining just before we leave the shop and we stop at the park across the street from the apartment so Holly can watch the dogs. 

“I think we’re going to get her first word any day now,” I say. 

“What do you think it will be?” 

Holly shrieks with laughter as she watches a small dog chase a larger one around the monkey bars. 

I smile. “Luke and I have a bet: he thinks it will be dog. I think it will be no. He’s says I’m a pessimist.”

"I wouldn't say that. A realist maybe."

We stay until it starts to get dark. Nick walks us back to the apartment, rides the elevator with us up to our floor. I gather my courage as we stop in front of the door. “Maybe we could do this again sometime. For Holly,” I add. I immediately feel guilty. I’m a coward, hiding what I want behind our daughter. 

What is it that I want, exactly?

He looks at me for a long while. I wait for him to tell me it’s a bad idea, that we’re playing with fire and someone is going to get burned. Then I realize he doesn’t need to; we’re both thinking it already.

“I’d like that,” he says, and despite the guilt and uncertainty swirling inside of me a swell of hope burgeons in my chest. 

“I’ll call you,” I say. 

He nods. Then he kisses Holly and turns to go. 

It’s dark by the time I let myself into the apartment. Luke is still at work and Hannah is at a sleepover. I worry whenever she’s gone overnight. The first time she went to a sleepover she called me at 9 pm sobbing, begging me to come get her. Since then she’s gone to two more and been fine at each of them. Confronting the thing she’s scared of… she’s a lot braver than I am. 

I give Holly dinner, read her a story, and put her to bed. Once she’s asleep I wander around the dark apartment, stopping at each of the framed pictures on the walls. Luke managed to get a few of the three of us in the pre-Gilead years from our old social media accounts. There are a couple of newer ones as well. Hannah and I on the swings in the park. Me holding Holly outside our apartment the day I got out of the hospital. Moira, Luke, and I cooking a meal together. Well, Luke is cooking anyway. Moira and I are drinking, our arms around each other. 

Between the two sets of photos, four years are missing. It’s like we all ceased to exist four years ago only to pop back into the world a few months ago, an extra baby in tow. It's a strange feeling, to be able to see in such stark way exactly what has been done to us.

When Luke finally gets back I heat up leftovers for him and sit at the table while he eats. He’s almost finished when I say, “I saw Nick today.”

“Oh yeah?” Luke’s voice is carefully casual. He knows everything. That Holly is his not Waterford’s. Even that Nick and I exchanged I love yous. Despite this, he’s never once said a bad word about Nick. If anything he’s heaped praise on the man. Somehow that makes it worse. 

“We went for coffee.”

“What’s he up to now?”

I tell him about Nick’s work. How he hopes he can make some good out of all the shit that’s happened. Luke looks at me a long time, as though waiting for something more. When I don’t add anything he stands and puts his plate in the dishwasher. “Well, I’m gonna go get ready for bed. You coming?”

 _That’s it?_ part of me wants to ask. _That’s all you have to say?_ Another part of me is grateful he doesn't say anything more. 

“In a minute,” I say. 

Later I sit in bed watching Luke sleep, the steady rise and fall of his chest. I remember watching Nick in much the same way. A small furrow often appeared between his brows as he slept, as though he were deep in thought. I used to kiss it. 

“What were you dreaming about?” I asked him once as we lay tangled together in his apartment over the garage.

The corner of his mouth quirked. “You.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really? You looked confused.”

“That’s because you confound me.” He dragged his thumb along the curve of my cheek. “I never know what you’re thinking.”

I remember pulling him on top of me, his hard length pressing against my thigh as I wrapped my hands behind his neck. Wiggling against him, I asked, “Can you tell what I’m thinking right now?”

He buried his face in the crook of my neck. I gasped as he pressed inside, my core still wet from our previous night’s lovemaking. Nick groaned.

“Yeah,” I panted. “Yeah, something like that.”

I flipped us so I was straddling him. His hands grip my waist as I sank down, taking him fully into me once more. Our bodies moved as if they were made to fit together. I loved to watch his face as he came. 

Luke snorts in his sleep and I snap back to reality. My face burns. How messed up do I have to be to think about fucking another man as I watch my husband sleep? Sliding out of bed, I go to the bathroom and lock the door intending to splash cold water on my face. Instead my fingers slip beneath the waistband of my shorts. I touch myself, thinking of Nick inside of me.

After I come I slump down on the closed toilet seat and drop my head into my hands. I don’t know who I am anymore. Am I Luke’s wife? Nick’s girlfriend? I am Hannah and Holly’s mother. I was a Handmaid. A daughter. A sinner. A friend. A slut. I am a woman. I am broken and bloodied. I am out of Gilead but I am fighting still, only this time my enemy is myself. Somehow that’s almost worse because now there is no one to blame but me. 

I flush the toilet and go back to bed.


	3. The Path Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm still not entirely happy with this chapter but I've written and rewritten it so many times at this point I think I just need to put it out there. I hope you enjoy!

Spring comes. 

I take Holly for walks in the evenings. It's my favorite time of day, when the shadows are long and light falls rich and golden through the new leaves. Flowers are beginning to bloom and the air is tinged with sweetness as it rustles through the trees. 

Sometimes Hannah join us. She chatters about school, the upcoming science fair, a friend’s birthday party. Lately she’s been begging for a dog. I tell her we don’t have enough space but my resolve is waning. Some days she is sullen and silent and I can tell she is back there, wearing a pink cloak and answering to a different name. On those days I take her hand and squeeze it. Most times she squeezes back.

Occasionally Nick will meet us at the big park on the corner of Edmands and Grove Street, halfway between our apartment and the garage where he’s picked up a few shifts in addition to his work at the Consulate. 

“I missed working with my hands,” he explains when I ask him why he’d want more work when the Consulate keeps him plenty busy already.

I muse without thinking. “You always were good with your hands.”

He smirks and I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

On days when Luke gets out of work early enough to join us, all five of us end up at the park together. When this happens Nick and Luke talk sports while I supervise Hannah on the swings, Holly nestled in her stroller beside me. Occasionally, I glance over my shoulder at them and I can’t help but compare them. 

Luke is taller, Nick leaner. Luke’s eyes are a warm, light brown where Nick’s are so dark they’re almost black. Luke’s face is an open book, meanwhile Nick has made an art form of obscuring what he’s thinking. In many way they are exact opposites. Yet they get along surprisingly well, ribbing each other about their various teams’ win-loss records as if they’ve known one another for years. Meanwhile, I can’t seem to hold a normal conversation with either of them. 

Maybe I need to start watching sports. 

One night in the middle of April all five of us are at the park. Luke is pushing Hannah on the swings. Nick hoists Holly out of her stroller and walks with her to a pink flowering tree so she can see the blooms up close. She reaches for the flowers and he kisses her cheek. As I watch them, two dark heads bent together something twinges in my chest. It feels equally like longing, sadness, and joy. Before Gilead, I don’t remember feeling so many emotions at once. I was either happy or I was sad. Angry or excited. Never both, and never all four at the same time. I miss knowing what I am feeling. 

A few days later I’m searching the fridge for the orange juice when Luke walks into the kitchen, leans against the doorway, and says, “I think we should get divorced.” He says it like a point of fact, the way someone might say “We’re out of milk” or “It’s raining, bring an umbrella.” 

Slowly, I shut the refrigerator door and turn to him, my brain unwilling or unable to process what has just been said. I shake my head. “Is this about Nick?”

“It’s not about Nick. It’s us. Me and you. You’re not happy, June.”

“Of course I’m happy.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not-”

Anger flares in my chest. I slam a hand on the counter. “Don’t.” My whole body is shaking. “Don't tell me how I feel.”

Luke’s calm facade crumbles and suddenly heartbreak is written into every inch of his face. An open book, indeed. “Then tell me I’m wrong. Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong and I’ll never bring it up again, I swear.”

I glare at him. _Of course you’re wrong. Of course I am happy. And if I’m not now, I can be. I will be! We’ll be okay. Everything will go back to the way it was before._

But I can’t do it. I can’t lie to him. The anger leaves me as swiftly as it appeared, collapsing in on itself like a dying star. “I don't even know what happy feels like anymore.”

Luke nods, his eyes red. “Don't you want to find out?” he says softly. 

For the first time since in a long time I feel like I am seeing him clearly. In that moment I know he is not trying to hurt me. Just the opposite; he is trying to help me in the only way he knows how. 

He is trying to set me free. 

The next morning Luke leaves for a work trip. He’ll be gone for three days. He planned things perfectly so that I would have time to consider things without his presence muddying my emotions. 

I pretend to be asleep as he moves around the room gathering his things. Just before he leaves he stoops down and kisses me on the cheek. Then he’s gone. 

That day I sit at my desk, the documents I’m supposed to be editing untouched as I stare blankly out the window. For months I have buried my head in the sand, pretended that things were fine when they weren’t. I thought if I pretended long enough it would become true. That’s what they say right? Fake it til you make it? But I was fooling myself and now that reality has caught up to me I am unprepared to face it. 

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Startled, I look up. Ellen, one of my coworkers stands beside my desk, hands wrapped around a large mug of tea. Tall and thin with long silver hair that she wear pulled back into an elegant chignon at the base of her neck, I imagine her being a dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet in her younger day. Despite the fact that they look nothing alike, there’s something about her that reminds me of my mother. A sureness of self, perhaps. One gets that feeling that she knows exactly who she is and what her purpose is in the world.

Perhaps this is why I tell her: “My husband thinks we should get divorced.”

If she is taken aback by a coworker sharing such private information she doesn’t let on. Her expression doesn’t change, her steady grey eyes considering me without judgement. Then again, she already knows far more about me that I do about her. Everyone in the office knows my background, that I was a Handmaid, that my younger daughter was born in Gilead, fathered by a man who is not my husband. 

“I take if you’re not a fan of the idea?”

I twist the simple gold band on my ring finger. Luke got it for me while I was still in the hospital, to replace the one they confiscated at the Red Center. I still haven’t gotten used to the weight of it. 

What I mean to say: Of course not. 

What I actually say: “I don’t know.” 

“Well, I can’t tell you what to do obviously. But I will say that no one could go through what you did without coming out the other side a changed person. That’s not something to be ashamed of; it’s something to be proud of. It means you’re a survivor.”

I smile at her. “Has anyone ever told you that you would make an excellent therapist?”

She laughs. “I should hope so. I was one. For 20 years actually.”

“Any chance you’re taking new clients?” I’m only half joking. 

“Unfortunately, I’m not licensed to practice in Canada.” She considers me thoughtfully. “You know what, though, I have a good friend who has a practice downtown. Let me give you her number. If you ever want someone to talk to, I can promise you that she is an excellent listener.”

That night I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the telephone number Ellen scribbled down for me. I stare at it so long the numbers start to blur before my eyes. Then I pick up the phone and dial. 

Ellen’s friend is not what I expected. I had imagined someone like her: older, elegant, wearing an outfit straight out of an Ann Taylor magazine. Zoe is not that. She is young, for one. She must be straight out of grad school. Her dark, curly hair is lobbed off at the chin and she wears large wire framed glasses and a flustered expression as she hurries into her office clutching a coffee mug and dabbing at a large stain on the front of her polka dot sweater with a handful of paper towels. 

“I’m so sorry, June. I just ran outside to get a coffee, which, of course, I immediately spilled all over myself.” She throws the soiled paper towels into a wastebasket under her desk and falls into the armchair across from the couch where I am perched. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she smiles. “So. What brings you in today?”

I tell her everything.

Ellen wasn’t lying; Zoe is an excellent listener. She doesn’t interrupt once as I speak, only nodding at appropriate times and occasionally jotting something down on a small notepad. When I finally finish she sets down her notebook and waits a minute to make sure I am really done before speaking. 

“Well, June, it sounds like you have two options. You can either continue on down the path you're on. Or… you can try something new.”

“I’m afraid.” I don’t realize until I say it how true this is. After everything I went through in Gilead I finally have control of my life again and the freedom is immense... and terrifying. What if I choose the wrong thing? What if I steer my life, Holly and Hannah’s lives, in the wrong direction?

“You had to take so many risks to get yourself and your daughters out of Gilead,” Zoe says. “Now that you are all safe, it’s only natural that you don’t want to rock the boat. Here’s the thing though: life is full of storms. The seas get rough now matter what we do. All we can do is put ourselves in the best position to weather them.”

“I just want to do what’s best for my daughters.” 

“As long as your children are safe and know that they are loved I think what would be best for them would be for their mom to be happy.”

I bite my lip.“And if I don’t know what would make me happy?”

“Then I think that’s what you need to find out.”

There are other things she says but this is what sticks with me in the days, months, and years that follow. 

The day Luke returns from his trip, I am waiting for him at the kitchen table. He can tell from my expression that I have something to say. Setting his bags down, he sinks slowly into the chair opposite me. He listens silently as I speak. I tell him that while I love him and always will, I am not the woman he fell in love with, I am someone else, someone I don’t fully understand. I tell him that if I am ever to feel normal again I need to figure out who I am now, today. I tell him that I can’t do this as his wife. In the end, I simply tell him that I’m sorry. 

He stands then, walks over to me, and pulls me to my feet. “You brought Hannah back to me. You brought yourself back. You have nothing to apologize for. Do you understand?” The ferocity in his voice catches me off guard. 

A raw lump forms in my throat. Swallowing it down, I force myself to nod. Luke opens his arms and I fall into them the way I have a thousand times before, only this time it feels different because this time it’s goodbye. 

“We will always be a family,” he murmurs into my hair. “And I will always be here for you. No matter what.”

 

In the end I don't go far. Although Luke offered to let me keep the apartment the space has always reflected more of him than me. Besides, I want a fresh start. 

I find an apartment in a building only a few blocks away. It’s a bit smaller but it’s equidistant to Hannah’s school and has a daycare on the ground floor for Holly. They also have a gym. I take up kickboxing. Sometimes it just feels good to punch something. 

I still take Holly for walks in the evenings. At least once a week the five of us still end up at the park together. Luke and Nick still talk sports, though I have given up on trying to join in. 

Things are awkward at first but it gets easier. Luke was right; we are still a family. The pieces are all there, just rearranged into a new pattern.

Slowly the tightness that has lived in my chest for so long begins to loosen. The pressure I’ve felt ever since I woke up in the hospital to act the part of Old June recedes. I begin to feel like I can breathe again.

I throw myself into turning the new apartment into a home. I paint Hannah’s room lavender, her favorite color. I drag Moira to the flea markets that spring up around the city on the weekends to shop for furniture, a table, chairs. I snag a dining room set for $60, a rocking chair for Holly’s room, some cute picture frames.

Nick comes over a couple of times a week to spend time with Holly. Despite working two jobs he never looks haggard, he is always calm, though I often wonder what emotions he is hiding beneath that unreadable facade. 

At first I worried how Hannah will react to his increased presence but she, though wary at first, is quick to come around. Soon Nick is one of her favorite people. This is largely due to that he is an excellent cook while I struggle not to set fire to her dinosaur chicken nuggets. 

We fall into a new rhythm. Nick cooks dinner then I clean up while he plays with the girls.  
There’s something about this after dinner time that loosens the walls he’s built up around himself. Maybe it’s the beer he has with dinner, or the full bellies, or the summer heat chipping away at his defenses. Whatever it is, I learn more about him during these lazy summer evenings than I have in the almost three years of knowing him.

I learn that his grandmother taught him to cook when she used to watch him after school.  
I learn that his favorite color is blue and that he swam and ran track in high school. I learn that he used to draw but he was never any good at it, and that, although he hadn’t gone to college, if he had he would have studied history. He is especially interested in the classics. Alexander the Great, Pompey and Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra. 

“You should read about Boudica,” I say. 

“Who was she?”

“According to most sources she was the Queen of a celtic tribe who led a revolt against Roman rule. I worked on a book about her at my old job. She was kind of a badass.”

He catches my eyes, a small smile dancing around the corner of his mouth. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

I learn about Josh, his older brother, the boy from the photograph in his apartment above the garage. 

He’s sitting at the kitchen table with Holly in his lap while I scrub lasagna residue from a pan.

“He was five years older than me. He was good at everything. Made the varsity baseball team as a freshman. I thought the sun shone out his ass. Wanted to be just like him.”

“What happened to him?”

“He joined the army after graduation. Did three tours in Iraq. When he came home he was different. Quieter. He got a job at the mill with my dad. When the mill shut down he couldn’t find anything else. I don’t know when it started but he got hooked on some bad shit. Died of an overdose the year before Congress fell.”

Turning off the faucet, I turn toward him. “I’m so sorry, Nick.”

He raises an eyebrow. “He would have liked you. He had a thing for stubborn women.”

“Hey.” I chuck my sudsy washcloth at him. 

He smiles and tosses the cloth back to me. Dropping it into the sink, I walk over to his chair and crouch down beside him. I kiss Holly’s forehead, then look up at him. “We’ll tell her about him.”

He swallows thickly and nods. He doesn’t say it but I read the thanks in his gaze. 

That night when I walk him to the door and rise up on my toes to kiss his cheek. “Goodnight.”

His hand finds mine, his thumb slides across my palm, his brow is furrowed as though the lines that criss cross my skin are a map he can’t decipher. Such a small touch, yet it sets my entire body aflame. I can barely breathe. I should pull away but I don’t and neither does he. He opens his mouth to say something but before he can the elevator at the end of the hall slides open and Moira steps out. We leap apart as caught in a compromising situation.

“What was that about?” Moira asks once he’s gone.

I turn away, busying myself with straightening the pile shoes by the door. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? That boy has basically been living here the past few weeks and I have been in saunas less steamy than the look he gave you just now.”

I straighten and shrug. “He’s Holly’s dad. He’s just over here to spend time with her.”

“Girl, you can tell yourself whatever you want but we both know she is not the only one he wants to spend time with.”

Despite my denials, I find myself looking forward to Nick’s visits, missing him as soon as he leaves. I prolong moments of physical contact, drawing out the touch of our hands as he places Holly on my lap, the brush of an arm as we each pass other in the hall though it’s plenty wide for both of us.

It’s not enough. 

Towards the end of the summer I order a new crib for Holly. Her old one was a donation from the refugee center and while it’s perfectly safe I’ve been wanting to get her a new one for a while. The day the crib arrives the girls are staying at Moira’s so I drag the giant box down the hall into the nursery and set to work. 

Three hours later, the room is a disaster zone of wooden parts and loose screws and I am no closer to completing the crib then when I started. “Fuck this,” I mutter. Snatching up my phone from the floor, I punch in Nick’s number.

He picks on the third ring. Before he can speak I say, “I have a favor to ask but before you say anything I need you to know that I am a strong, capable, and independent woman.”

I can hear the amusement in his voice as he says, “Alright.”

“Good. Because I could really use your help setting up Holly’s new crib.”

He arrives twenty minutes later and I lead him down the hall to the nursery. He freezes in the doorway as he takes in the what my hours of work have accomplished. “It looks like an Ikea exploded in here.”

“I know, I know. Just please tell me you can fix it.”

It takes him forty-five minutes to disassemble the monster I’ve made and rebuild it into to a mirror image of the crib displayed on the outside of the box. 

I walk around it in amazement, trailing my hand along the railing. “Next you’re going to tell me you can walk on water.”

Smiling, Nick wanders over to the bureau where Holly’s favorite plushie is propped up against the wall. 

“That’s Mr. Bunny,” I say as he picks up the green rabbit. “Holly can’t go to sleep without him.”

Nick fingers a large rip in one of the bunny’s ears. The beloved rabbit is missing an eye, his fur is missing in patches, and stuffing has started to leak out of a small tear in his side. “He’s had a rough time of it.” 

I walk over to him and take the rabbit from his hands. “Yeah, well, sometimes love puts you through the wringer.” 

We look up at the same time and our eyes lock. My heart thuds in my chest. His pupils are dark with longing. 

“Nick,” I say. 

Funny how a single syllable can hold so much. My restraint, which has held out for so long, cracks like ice beneath a heavy boot. Suddenly I need his hands on me. We move at the same time, reaching for each other, and then he’s there, his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, tugging me closer, closer, closer still. 

Our clothes create a Hansel and Gretel trail back to the bedroom. By the time we fall into the bed we’re both naked. I cling to him as he enters me. After so long the sweet fullness feels like coming home. We move together, a perfect union. After so many months, we don’t last long. I come and a moment later so does he. Afterward I rest my head on his chest, our hands laced together on his stomach. 

“I don’t want to freak you out,” I murmur. “But I think I might be in love with you.”

He frowns. “Well, this is awkward.”

Raising my head, I slap his chest. “Nick!”

Grinning, he kisses my forehead. “I love you, too.”

I laugh. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

He kisses me again. I am drunk with happiness. I roll on top of him, straddling his waist. Bending over I kiss his lips. _I love you._ His nose. _I love you._ His eyelids. _I love you._

He says it back in the way he kisses me, the way his hands grip my waist, gentle yet urgent, in the tenderness with which he brushes a lock of hair out of my face, gazing up at me as though I’m the brightest star in the sky. 

Then his hand slips between us and even silent words give way to gasps.

**Author's Note:**

> comments = love! They also make me want to write more in the future!


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